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Architectural Heritage Conservation in South and East Asia and in Europe: Contemporary Practices

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Authenticity in Architectural Heritage Conservation

Abstract

On the basis of a number of illustrated case studies from Germany, Nepal, India, China, and Japan, a variety of aspects of authenticity are presented in as undogmatic a way as possible—from the primary importance of tangible material to intangible aspects connected with building rituals and craftsmanship, and practices of cyclic renewal. Factors such as spirit of place and architecture often outweigh archeological perspectives, which tend to freeze an object in time. Until recently, conservation and restoration strategies were based on principles often aspiring to the status of belief systems. The past two decades have confronted the heartlands of the conservation movement in the West with a variety of values rooted in the conviction that it is time to leave behind the ideology of Europe’s nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the obsession with patina and materiality. The incipient transcultural debate is in the process of transcending established borderlines and exploring the amazing similarities between “European”/”North American” and “Asian” ideas and strategies in connection with such values as identity or integrity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Born 1923 in New York, Lowenthal is professor emeritus of geography at University College London. He read history at Harvard and geography at Berkeley, served in the US Army and the US State Department in 1945–1946 before becoming professor of geography at the University of California (1972–1985). His books The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge University Press, 1985) and Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Cambridge University Press, 1998) have widened the scope of discussion on conservation issues. When in 2010 Stephens Randall published The Past Is No Foreign Country, Lowenthal reacted “to the wholesale perversion of history” by planning to revise his book for publication in 2012 and to retitle it The Past was a Foreign Country.

  2. 2.

    Translated from German by Niels Gutschow: Man könnte auch sagen, die Kopie ist originaler als das Original, denn je älter ein Gebäude wird, desto mehr entfernt es sich vom ursprünglichen Zustand. Born in Korea, Han lives in Berlin and writes in German.

  3. 3.

    “Deuvet-Nachrichten im Überblick,” Der Pendelwinker 6/1 (2007), 24.

  4. 4.

    Quoted after Lupfer and Sigel 2000a, 29.

  5. 5.

    Translations in the text by the author.

  6. 6.

    Statement of the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen-Anhalt Halle, 22 November 1999, cited in Mrass 2011.

  7. 7.

    The case is presented here based on the MA thesis by Shaohua Zhang 2009. Zhang presents the historical background of the Stone Sutra Valley in exhaustive detail. The thesis documents and illustrates recent interventions and contains on-site interviews conducted in December 2008.

  8. 8.

    “Zweck der Restaurierung solle vor allem das Erhalten sein; man solle das, was zerfallen will, vor weiterer Beschädigung behüten. Man solle es so herstellen, daß man deutlich erkenne, was an einem Bau alt und was neu sei, und man solle das, was man neu hinzufüge, auch stilistisch als neu kennzeichnen.” Cornelius Gurlitt in “Bericht des Ersten Tages für Denkmalpflege, 24–25. September 1900 in Dresden” (Berlin 1900), 51, quoted from Buttlar et al. 2011, 62.

  9. 9.

    “Dieser Anspruch auf Allgemeingültigkeit ist es nun auch, der die Anhänger des Alterswertes unwiderstehlich dahin treibt, erobernd und unduldsam aufzutreten.” In Riegl 1903; this quote is reprinted in Dehio 1988, 62, and Buttlar et al. 2011, 66.

  10. 10.

    Kennedy 2011, 6.

  11. 11.

    The arguments set out in the following were advanced in a statement by Josef Wiedemann, dated 26 July 1961, see Wiedemann 1980, 388–390.

  12. 12.

    Translations by the author.

  13. 13.

    Ernst Mittig spoke of “Beweismittel für den Zweiten Weltkrieg” and Helmut Fußbroich of a “Denk- und Mahnmal,” see Hoven 1996.

  14. 14.

    Arnold Wolff, the master builder of the cathedral, is quoted from “Dokumentation zur Diskussion um die Ziegelplombe am Nordturm des Kölner Domes (Pfeiler F 1 West) in den Jahren 1995 und 1996,” Cologne, April 1996.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Niels Gutschow

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  1. Cluster of Excellence, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Katharina Weiler

  2. South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Niels Gutschow

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Gutschow, N. (2017). Architectural Heritage Conservation in South and East Asia and in Europe: Contemporary Practices. In: Weiler, K., Gutschow, N. (eds) Authenticity in Architectural Heritage Conservation. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30523-3_1

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